The Big House: Space, Place, and Identity in Irish Fiction

Abstract

How does Irish fiction stand out as being Irish? Irish novels are markedly Irish?from Maria Edgeworth's Castle Rackrent (1800), first truly Irish novel1 to recent fiction of Maeve Binchy and Niall Williams. On many occasions Ireland itself is presented as a character in text, as in James Joyce's Dubliners (1914)? where Dublin and its people stand for whole of Ireland, enhanced by detail and exactness of Dublin sites, streets, and characters. In his 1988 critical history of Irish novel, James M. Cahalan points out that the Big House novel was most popular and enduring subgenre within Irish novel, except for Irish historical novel.2 What is clear is that these fic tions could not be set anywhere else; action must take place in Ireland. With both these genres emphasis falls upon Irish element?either from historical point of view or with a strong image (the Big House), which evokes Protestant Ascendancy. The spatial frames of Irish fiction are set and determined, despite their occasional disturbance by visitors. Space and place in Irish fiction play an integral role in both creation and rediscovery of iden tity, on both a personal and a national level. Published in 1800, Castle Rackrent may be seen as a novella or tale, owing to its brevity. Its full and weighty title?Castle Rackrent, An Hibernian Tale: Taken from Facts, and from Manners of Irish Squires, before Year 1/82?iron ically backs up case for text as tale over novel. Regardless, Edgeworth's title draws attention to book's Irishness.3 You know it is set in Ireland and is about Irish people. Sydney Owenson's The Wild Irish Girl (1806) does this too, but in a more subtle and discreet way. Indeed, later Irish fiction?from Somerville and Ross's The Real Charlotte (1894) through James Joyce's fiction and on to William Trevor's Fools of Fortune (1983)?does not seem to feel need to declare itself as Irish so early on. This change of tactic suggests that Irish